Stapleton Tavern

Very spacious pub. Staff are very friendly! Excellent draught beer selection. They show football on the screens but give you the option to sit in the dining area if football is not your thing. Food is good but portions could be more generous. Although the yorkshire pudding on my roast had a charcoal element to it and my knife couldn’t handle the potatoes, I would still recommend it — these things happen in the caterinh business eh!!!

It’s big — very big — large dining section at the back and a very quirky off the wall style inside — I only visited this place on a wet Monday afternoon but I can imagine that it’s rocking on a Thur/​Fri/​Sat it seems that kind of place, didn’t order anything special just a coke n a bag of crisps but I would visit here again as I have friends live down the road — nice place staff friendly as well — if you’re this way you wont be upset popping in here for a drink ;)

Good pub. Good Guinness. Good service. Watched an Arsenal game on big screen. Non rowdy crowd, Gooner pub. Pity big screen has window behind as sun affected screen visual quality. Nice inside though bit pricey. But I like the pub for starting a crawl.

Lively Castro pub. Very good food. When its really busy you need to be patient. All in all a good evening but you can’t hear yourself speak. Ideal for a group in the dining area.

My local!
The main selling point is of course being a 3 min walk from my house, I lived south for a while and always found it hard to find a decent local pub, I have found one in the Stapleton though.
The drinks are reasonably priced and they change the menu around through the year, it’s a big space so it means even if sports are on you can usually find a table, they even have a section which they hold for private events (we had a sneak peek of a wedding reception there a few weeks ago). The food is good pub fare and they usually fairly decent veggie options, sometimes the food service can be a little slow at weekend lunchtimes but the staff are good at forewarning you. Another great thing is that it’s dog friendly which is a BIG plus. Drinks wise the wine and draft are pretty good and over the summer you can always get Pimms.
They don’t have an outside area but the inside is airy and light, so it feels less cramped than some of the other pubs in Finsbury Park. The mismatched furniture creates a cosy homely feel and the staff are friendly. They could do with keeping the toilets a little cleaner/​tidier, they are quite small so they look messy very quickly on busy days.
Although I have not taken advantage they do a variety of themed nights, film nights, quizzes etc… and have board games available to play.
A great place for a quick after work drink, a lazy weekend afternoon or lunch with friends and family.

I’m one of those people who’ve always wanted a really decent, local pub and I think I may have found it in the Stapleton.
It’s main attraction may be that it’s a stone’s throw from my house but there’s still plenty more to recommend this pub — the drinks are reasonable (particularly compared to what I imagine is arch-​enemy the Old Dairy over the road), the staff are always friendly, the food is always good and you can generally snag a table as the place is roomy.
Even better? If the football is on you can still find a corner away from the TVs. For a pub in Finsbury Park this is basically the best.thing.ever.
They were a bit slow with our Sunday lunches when they had a few large parties in the other room so bear that in mind but otherwise this is a local I can easily get behind.

So happy that this is a cartwheel away from my home! (Okay that’s a lie, I’ve never done a cartwheel to get there, and it’d probably take at least 4 rotations because I’m short, but still, you get how close I live to this place…).
We started going because a group of us wanted to get into the whole weekly ‘pub quiz’ thing. We had started the quizzing the week before across the road at the Old Dairy but decided that we weren’t fans of their quiz (mostly because we were HORRIBLE at it). BUT the quiz at the Stapleton is great! Not too easy, but not too hard and they have fun rounds like the tin foil sculpture challenge.
Monday nights are movie nights with a wide range of old and new movies. Often they’ll ask for a donation in support of the MIND charity shop across the street, but you can also get popcorn or a try to win a prize for making a donation.
Food is pretty good — their sticky toffee pudding is pretty great and sold out the other night I was there, much to my disappointment!
My flatmates and I love this place and recommend that you check it out!

The Stapleton Tavern! My home across-​the-​street-​from-​home!
I recently moved to the Finsbury ‘hood and was looking for a local pub that was dog friendly as well. Meandering up and down the streets, I encountered door after door with the terrible «No Dogs Allowed» sign. I didn’t notice one on the Stapleton, though, and thought I’d shoot them a quick Tweet to see what the deal was. Bonus point number one? They replied within minutes. Bonus point number two? They love dogs.
Okay, I’ll admit, allowing dogs isn’t the only thing a pub needs to get five stars from me. Good food, fair prices, friendly staff, that’s all necessary. And the Stapleton has it. They legitimately have really friendly staff. The fish and chips (yes, I got fish and chips at a pub) is delicious, as is the chicken pie (which has a LOT of chicken in it). They have nightly events from free movies to pub quizzes and plenty of TVs to watch football.
The Stapleton knows I love them, now you do too.

Avoid. The venue itself is impressive, and standard array of drinks/​prices.
Lets itself down on the food, which has always been a horrendous disappointment. The simplest of orders e.g. burgers, are in danger of being messed up, and the roast I had one sunday was beyond poor.
I used to work in a similar pub and I understand that for 10 quid you can’t expect Michelin star quality ingredients. But you can prepare it properly, and serve it without ludicrous delays, especially with the benefit of repeated practice day in day out.
Will avoid in future and try the old dairy across the road. Hope readers do likewise and vote with their wallets until Stapleton goes busto.

Absolutely love the room at the back — this makes it my favourite pub in the area! Sofas are wonderful and the food is good, too. Great place to spend lots of time. Unless it’s when the pub is completely packed, in which case it’s best avoided altogether.

Love it! I should probably reserve judgement until I eat their food, but their menu was interesting and the beer selection was decent. Also, I started to write this review on my phone while half-​drunk. That’s always a good sign.
The atmosphere is amazing. I must have walked past this place a dozen times and never thought about going in until a friend suggested meeting there. It feels like a big cozy house somewhere far from London, with mismatched furnishings, cheery yellow walls, and just… it feels so nice to be in there! There are lots of windows so it’s quite bright and comfortable during the day time. We left shortly after dark, but it seemed cozy and intimate at night, too.
Will definitely go back soon.

Even though it was a bit farther walk than other pubs, this became my «local» after the refurbishment when I lived in Finsbury Park.
I love the atmosphere first of all. It’s like being in a granny’s house. Knick-​knacks and a hodge podge of chairs and tables while still being open and airy. It is very relaxed and has live music and pub quiz nights; to me it’s much nicer than The Old Dairy next door that seems stuffy and more suited to «suits» types.
It also has Blue Moon on tap and is served with an orange slice! A little slice of my American home.
Met up for a Sunday roast once, the only food I’ve ordered, to be told something did not have cheese in it. It did. :/​
Other than that, I just enjoy spending time here!

The choice of beer and music on my couple of visits here has pleased me. Radiohead In Rainbows to listen to, Exmoor Gold or Hopback summer lightening to drink.
However any attempts towards that most obnoxious, but relevant, of wordsambience were ruined by table football/​babyfoot/​ich spiele mit kleinen Manner und einen Ball auf ein Tisch. whatever you want to call it. Although on this occasion the shrieks of this particular banshee were unusually irritating, the chimplike screaming and jumping that accompany most games never allow for a relaxing drink in the proximity. I don’t understand why pubs ever have this, unless they are already really noisy places.

A large group of us had a late lunch here on a Saturday afternoon. and we’re happy to recommend it to others.
I ate beer battered coley goujons with hand cut chips and seasonal vegetables for £9.50. Basically, it was fish & chips. But pretty much the best fish & chips I’ve ever had.
They had a decent selection of real ales — with the Black Country Bitter (£3.50) being my choice of tipple. It was well served. No complaints there. And I am very fussy about my ales.
Service was prompt and pleasant.

Going past this pub for the first time, it looked like any other. There were loads op people standing and watching football on a plasma screen. Turns out it’s this place is a bit special.
There are three parts to the pub– a main area with said tv screen, a narrow area with seats near the bar (more like a traditional pub) and a huge back room that looks like a hunting lodge (no stuffed animals but a massive fireplace).
There a good variety of beer and the food’s nice. I’d go back.